Environmental chemical fate search has been conducted every year for 24 years from 1974 through 1998 by the Environmental Agency, and revealed that about 40% of 775 chemical substances that have been searched so far are emitted into the environment. Chemical substances that are industrially produced at the present in Japan are estimated about 50,000, and the production scale and the kinds of chemical substances are increasing year by year. It is known that chemical substances that are accidentally produced by water treatment with chlorine and incineration pollute the environment. Although such facts allow us to predict that there are a large number of chemical substances that have been accumulated in the environment, it is extremely difficult to search and examine individually all chemical substances.
Conventional bioassays (approaches to evaluate the harmful effects on biological materials on the basis of their responses) wherein inhibited growth and particular biological responses in individuals and cells of fishes, daphnia and shellfish are used as indicators make it possible to determine the presence or absence of the toxicity of chemical substances in the environment, but neither possible to evaluate the characters nor origins of the toxicity. The evaluation methods based on the activity of nitrite-forming bacteria or nitrate-forming bacteria (Japanese Patent Publication (kokai) No. 123705/1994, Japanese Patent Publication (kokai) No. 2000-206087) and the activity of iron bacteria have been proposed, and devices such as Acute toxicants monitor (Fuji Electric Corporate Research and Development, Ltd. Japan) are marketed. In foreign countries, the devices for evaluation based on emission intensity of luminous bacteria are commercially available (MICROTOX, azur, Co., USA; LUMIS, drlange, Co. Germany). However, those devices still involve conventional bioassays, and never provide any detailed information of toxic chemical substances.
In Japan, the risk control of chemical substances is reconsidered every time a chemical substance pollution is newly found, and official regulations and self-imposed regulations are combined to organize the system for risk control. However, any system has not been yet organized that could quickly respond to the present complicated and diversified conditions, including accidental productions and environmental emission of toxic chemical substances as typified by trihalomethane and dioxin. Animal experiments as used in the method for evaluation of toxic substance of “Law Concerning Examination and Manufacture, etc. of Chemical Substances” are expensive and time-consuming, and are not accepted across the world. Although, as such, the control system has been continuously discussed, it has not been successfully accomplished because there is no way to solve the problem. Thus, a method for readily detecting chemical substances that occur in the environment is desired.